FRUSTRATED BY FAILURE TO AVERT FAMINE, U.S. SEEKS A BETTER WAY TO AID AFRICA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000604900058-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 2
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 4, 2012
• Sequence Number: 58
• Publication Date: January 18, 1986
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT ~~
' Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04 :CIA-RDP90-009658000604900058-3
'_..~:.~......~.... 18 January 1986
frustrated b Failure to Av r ~nin
y e t a e,
U. S. Seel~s a fetter Wa to Aid Arica
Administration-Says wee Enterprise Can Lead to Self .Sufficiency
By David B. Ottaway
Washington Post Staff Writer
The great African famine of
1984-85 has abated, but in this
country it has left a bitter legacy of
recriminations and soul-searching
over why the billions of dollars in
American aid failed to avert the ca-
tastrophe. Frustrated conservatives
and liberals alike are again search-
ing for a new approach to economic
development in Africa to more ef-
fectively combat the inevitable di-
sasters wrought by nature, man and
continental penury.
Seizing on the famine and signs of
a greater African willingness to un-
dertake reforms, the Reagan ad-
ministration is pressing ,African
leaders to adopt its doctrine of free
enterprise and end heavy=handed
state involvement in Africa's farm
economies.
This new development strategy
comes as the U.S. government has
just approved more than $50 billion
in subsidies and other programs
over the next three years to prop
up ailing American farmers.
The strategy calls upon Africa to
end government subsidies, as well
as market and price controls, in an
effort to spur agricultural produc-
tion and pursue food self-
sufficiency.
While the billions of dollars the
U.S. government pays in domestic
farm subsidies are mainly intended
to provide farmers with adequate
prices, the subsidies provided by
Third World governments are pri-
marily intended to keep consumer
food prices low to assure domestic
:tranquility and political stability.
The U.S. development strategy
comes with a new vocabulary,
echoed by institutions such as the
World Bank and International Mon-
etary Fund, that includes such ex-
pressions as "policy dialogue" and
"structural adjustment."
The first term refers to U.S. ef-
forts to convince African leaders of
the folly of their past'socialist ways
-and the need to adopt principles of a
-free market system. Tie second is
_...
a euphemism for the sweeping fun-
damental economic reforms the
United States is pushing for Africa,
particularly in agricultural policies.
Caught in the middle of .yet an-
other shift in U.S. policy is the
Agency for International Develop-
ment (AID), which is under attack
from Republican conservatives and
some moderate Democrats=as
well as big business-for laxness in
spreading the new free-enterprise
gospel and in implementing projects
to aid the African private sector:
The discontent with AID's per-
formance comes amid frustration
over the effectiveness of U.S. aid to
many Third World nations, pkrtic-
ularly in Africa, and a sense of bank-
ruptcy of past American theories of
economic development. Black Af-
rican nations, with a cumulative
debt of roughly $100 billion and
often . with struggling economies,
have become the central focus of
attention.
Rgbert S. McNamara, former
World Bank president, recently told
the House Select Committee on
Hunger that reversing the decline
in living standards in >sub-Saharan
Africa was "the overriding devel-
opment task that faces the world
today."
Mark L. Edelman, AID's assist-
ant administrator for Africa, com-
paring the debt .crisis in Latin
America to the economic one facing
many Africa countries, said: "Latin
America going belly-up is a financial
disaster for the world. But if Africa
goes belly-up, it'll be a development
disaster."
A decade.ago, after the last great
famine in Africa, Western donors
led by the United States went
through a similar soul-searching,
produced a host of studies and new
development theories and concen-
trated their funds end efforts on the
worst affected nations-only to wit-
ness adevastating famine last year.
"Sub-Saharan Africa's ?rim eco-
nomic situation toda .is testimony
to the failure of over two deco es of
eve o ment a ort y rtcan ov-
nments, onor countries and in-
ternationa orgamzattons, sat a
special entry me tgence gency
report pu is a ast ebruary. e
CIA cal e t e out ook or Africa
"bleak for the remainder of the dec-
o e.
The famine, together with the
African debt crisis and other dire
predictions for the continent, have
touched off a debate over the failure
of U.S. aid programs-within Con-
gress, the administration and most
international institutions and agen-
cies dealing with the Third World.
In mid-September, six- Republi-
can senators led by Jesse Helms of
North Carolina wrote President
Reagan demanding an overhaul of
the U.S: foreign assistance pro-
gram. They charged that AID had
"totally failed" to carry out the pres-
ident's promised "economic revo-
lution" using American capitalism as
a model for Third World develop-
ment. ,
They also called. for a change in
the charter of the Overseas Private
Investment Corp. (OPIC) to allow it
to assume management responsi-
bility of all U.S, economic develop-
ment assistance now run by AID. `
"AID's Bureau for Private Enter-
prise is under-funded -and largely
ignored," the senators `wrote. "The
private enterprise efforts of the
other AID bureaus are rarely effec-
tive and frequently seem to have
lisle to ` do with stimulating true
privately driven economic growth."
The unhappiness is not a conser-
v~tive Republican phenomenon,
however.
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04 :CIA-RDP90-009658000604900058-3
 ~:. .
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04 :CIA-RDP90-009658000604900058-3
In late October, three Democrat-
ic senators-Gary Hart of Color-
ado, Sam Nunn of Georgia.and Dan-
i~ K. Inouye of Hawaii-introduced
a bill proposing that OPIC take over
"primary responsibility" for private
sector development in Third World
c?untries and for promoting in-
volvement by the U.S. private sec-
tdr in helping Third World nations
emulate the American economic
way.
Meanwhile, various private
groups and development specialists
have urged programs from a West-
eln "Marshall Plan" to save Africa
tb` a new "compact" between West-
etn donors and ,repentant African
governments to assure additional
outside aid in return for long-over-
due economic reforms..
Underlying many of these pro-
posals has been a recognition that
donors may have contributed to
Africa's plight.
In a review of past U.S. ap-.
proaches to development, a recent
report by the Council on Foreign
Relations and the Overseas Devel-
opment Council noted that "most
donors, including international in-
stitutions, have jumped from one
fad to another to justify develop-
ment expenditures."
Donors have gone "from the sup-
port of infrastructure development,
to a concern with basic human
needs, to the most recent heavy
focus on agriculture and encourage-
ment of the private sector," the re-
port said.
"Outside donors, for all the mon-
ey that they have poured into Africa
since independence, Have often
made contradictory demands or im-
posed. conflicting conditions on the
beneficiaries of ::their. largesse;' it
said. -
"Meaawhile, :proliferating :~: and
overlapping- projects have drained
the administrative.. energies of Af-
rican officials and left the conti-
nent's landscape strewn with
rusted-out bright ideas."
The .report was prepared by a
committee .led :~ by. Donald..: F.
McHenry, U.S. ambassador to the
United Nations during the Carter
administration, and Lawrence S.
Eagleburger, undersecretary. of
state for political affairs from 1982
to 1984.
Like many other reports and pro-
posals, it calls for a fresh start by
both donors and African govern-
ments and a-big boost in U.S. assist-
ance- to the money-starved conti-
nent. The study suggests tripling
the current level of U.S. aid to Af-
rica to $3 billion a year.
McNamara, in his report to the
House panel on hunger Dec. 5, also
argued for a massive new injection
of outside financial aid, warning that
otherwise there was little hope for
reversing Africa's economic de-
cline.
He estimated that the 29 poorest
African nations needed $6,5 billion
in external aid annually for the
1985-90 period, but .said outside
donors are expected to provide "no
more than 40 percent of that
amount."
AID officials say they believe the
agency- is being unfairly blamed for
the failure of U.S. aid to solve Af-
rica's monumental development
problems and for not doing enough
to promote the African private sec-
tor.
"Policy reform is-the most impor-
tant thing AID is doing today in Af-
rica," said Edelman, the AID offi-
cial. "Nothing is more helpful for
the private sector than govern-
ments getting out of the economy.
"We just haven't gone out and
beat the bush telling people -what
we've been doing," he said.
Reflecting the generally skeptical
response at AID to the latest theory
of how to "save" Africa by promot-
ing private enterprise; Edelman
said, "Fifteen years ago, dams and
hospitals were 'in.' Then, it was
basic human .needs. Now it's. the
private sector and agriculture. We
have a `man-on-the-moon quick-fix
approach.' (Butt development is not
a technical project. It involves pol-
itics, sociology ...It's not atech-
nical fix."
Edelman also warned against
thinking that there is any one "Af-
rican model" of development that
can be applied to spark acontinent-
wide agricultural "revolution" to
pull Africa out of its economic mire.
Nor is the much-cited. example of
India, which reversed its fortunes
by using new varieties of "miracle"
wheat and rice, of much relevance
to Africa, according to Edelman.
Among many other differences, In-
dia has two basic crops while some
African countries have as many as
18 crops and far weaker soils. -
"There's no easy answer to the
[Africans farm problem," Edelman
said. "We are telling Africans to do
things we can't do ourselves," he
added, referring to donor demands
that African governments end their
subsidies. "Domestic pressures [to
continue subsidies) are there and
we can't handle that, either."
Declassified in Part -Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/04 :CIA-RDP90-009658000604900058-3